Local congregation celebrating church’s 75-year anniversary

Primera Iglesia Bautista is celebrating 75 years with a special service on Sunday.

Primera Iglesia Bautista is celebrating 75 years with a special service on Sunday.

Photo: Ellysa Harris/Plainview Herald

Photo: Ellysa Harris/Plainview Herald

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Primera Iglesia Bautista is celebrating 75 years with a special service on Sunday.

Primera Iglesia Bautista is celebrating 75 years with a special service on Sunday.

Photo: Ellysa Harris/Plainview Herald

Local congregation celebrating church’s 75-year anniversary

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

It began with a group of students involved in a volunteer mission band for what was then Wayland Baptist College.

They had a goal to evangelize the Spanish speakers around the Plainview community during the 1940s. According to a written history of the Primera Iglesia Bautista prepared by one of its former pastors, Glen E. Godsey, for presentation during the church's 55th anniversary, the students would sit on the hood of a vehicle and just preach.

Eventually, the written history says, the volunteers found a house and continued their work.

That was all about 75 years ago, said Belinda Pena during an interview with the Herald in the sanctuary of the church in northeast Plainview. And the church has grown since then to include a designated house of worship, actual pastors and a faithful congregation.

On Sunday, the church congregation plans to celebrate the anniversary with a special 2 p.m. service in which past and present church members are expected to attend and share memories of and blessings for Primera Iglesia Bautista.

"We're a close-knit church family," Pena said – and that includes those that have moved on to different communities.

A wall at the front of the church right inside the doors is currently decorated with photos and testimonies of church leaders past. Most of the material is black and white.

Pena pointed out a photo of the late Rev. Glen E. Godsey and mentioned he was perhaps one of the more influential church leaders that has led the congregation.

Godsey died in 2010 and he led the church for about 15 years through the 1970s and early 1980s.

The road that runs by the church is named after him.

"He was a very giving person," Godsey said. "He was Anglo and he spoke fluent Spanish."

He also reached out to help wherever he felt he was needed – and that's how he led the congregation.

Pena started attending the church shortly before he moved on.

She's been attending church at Primera Iglesia Bautista for 30 years, she said, and it's always been that way.

When she started looking to renew her faith, the church was conveniently just down the street from her parents. She felt at home and that's what the church became – a home away from home.

She was already an adult when she found it but she's grown here. It's the place she accepted the Lord into her heart, she said. It's the place she was baptized and also the place she and her husband, Raymond, eventually found themselves as a church leaders.

Theresa Villarreal felt the same.

"I've been going about 40 years," she said.

She and her late husband went to church there and when he died, she tried looking for another place of worship. No other place drew her in like Primera Iglesia Bautista, she said.

Within the past two years, Villarreal also started working with the adult Sunday school program.

"I don't call myself a teacher, I call myself a leader," she said. "Teachers need to be far more advanced on Bible words and stuff like that."

Besides the fellowship, both Villarreal and Pena said the church caters to the Spanish-speaking Christians who identify with the Baptist faith.

Villarreal was a member of the church when it celebrated 65 years 10 years ago, she said. Now she's looking forward to celebrating the next milestone on Sunday.

"I believe that any time in life if you feel like something is being accomplished in your life, that's where you need to stay," she said.

Primera Iglesia Bautista is located at 1205 San Felipe Ave. The community is invited to take part in the 2 p.m. service.